by Bob Carson

Editor’s Note: The USTA website is pleased to present freelance writer Bob Carson and his popular “Outside the Box” features. This monthly series is a menu of outlandish proposals presented with a wink — but the purpose behind them is serious. The views contained in this column are that of the author alone, and do not necessarily represent the opinions or views of the United States Trotting Association.

Bob Carson

Put yourself in the shoes of an entry-level customer. You enter our world with enthusiasm, curiosity and optimism. You push the mathematical realities aside and buy a yearling. You do the dance that many of us are familiar with — training bills, staking, qualifying, waiting, praying, etc. Your yearling manages to qualify (always a joyful day).

At this point, hopes are high; after all, you purchased and nurtured a young horse with some ability, not an easy feat. In your first official race, your horse gets dusted by 20 lengths; the second race is not much of an improvement. You realize that your horse is simply going around in expensive circles.

You do not earn a dime. In fact, and somewhat ironically, a qualified yet uncompetitive horse will cost an owner more than one who showed no racing ability and was taken out of training months ago. You stop the financial bleeding after losing 35 grand, maybe more, maybe much more. Unless you have a compulsion for suffering and losing money, this process will not be repeated with vigor.

Let’s take this deflating scenario and return to the part where “your horse is simply going around in expensive circles.” Suppose we engineer a system where a horse in this normally non-competitive category manages to win about 10 grand. We do not arrange this out of charity; we give 10 grand back to this customer for business reasons. We want customers to return.

Autumn Ryan graphic

Even with this “rebate,” our hypothetical customer has lost a minimum of 25 grand. But “winning” a small amount is a huge improvement over not winning anything. Earning some money changes things economically (slightly). But, racing and winning, even a small amount, dramatically changes the entire experience psychologically.

This happened to me right out of the gate. Many of you may relate. My first trotter barely qualified. Stakes racing was a bridge way too far. In most cases, every race was too far and too fast for this very pedestrian trotter. Fortunately, the racetrack raced a dreadfully low classification. I don’t even remember what the class was — perhaps “standing erect, breathing, having a tail and never showing a charted line quarter over 32 seconds.”

We entered this very slow field and were competitive. We earned a few dollars. We entered a few more times, and one day, in awful weather, my trotter stumbled across the finish line first. To me it did not matter a whit that the time was a snappy 2:10. Despite the fact that my overall ledger was still bright red, the season was somehow positive, not a total bust. I returned. The few thousand dollars that my trotter earned kept me hooked.

This leads to this month’s lunacy. For the 2-year season, (possibly the 3-year-old season), at about the two-thirds mark of the stakes racing season, racetracks should write races something like…

2-year-old trot, FM NW1 or of $10,000 for horses purchased at auction for over $10,000 (any charted line of 2:02 or faster excluded), purse $8,000.

Now what good would this do?

First of all, buyers of yearlings will have a tad bit of insurance in a very risky business. While standing in the audience, agonizing if I should raise my hand, the thought is, “All I need to do is qualify and I can probably get 10 grand back.” This is important because every buyer who leaves the sale with a horse “knows” the yearling will qualify.

And another thought that flashes through my feeble mind is, “Hey, this baby does not need to trot in 1:55 to compete, 2:03 will take some of the sting out of my costs.” It would seem that carrots like these would help breeders push prices upward, especially marginal horses that hang in the $5,000 to $9,000 range.

The “near miss” mindset that keeps many gamblers returning comes into play. When a slot machine stops on two cherries and the third is one click away, the person pulling the handle gets a small payoff and believes (irrationally), “I was so close to a big payoff.” They try again. A yearling buyer who gets a horse to the races and earns a little, will sometimes believe (again irrationally), that if my horse was “just a few seconds faster” I would have won big.

Wagering on these races (if written carefully) just might be attractive to gamblers. Bettors want competitive racing and decent payoffs — this could be arranged even if the times are several seconds below speedballs. Bettors also might gravitate to the concept that these are struggling owners and horses. The races would be more unpredictable with skimpy charted lines all over the map; this gives serious players fresh angles when trends and bloodlines and training miles suddenly are more relevant.

Races like this could ease the horse shortage. How many horses qualify but are not really competitive? If my experiences are any indication, the answer is quite a few. Races of this classification on each card would bring horses into play for a racetrack.

The 2-year-olds that are not ready to race at the start of stakes or fair seasons could take their time. The extra months for some late bloomers are important. These horses might not qualify until August or September, maybe not even until November or December, but they would have someplace to go, something to shoot for. If enough are in this boat, races with fresh (albeit slower) horses could be ready when we need them.

Races like this give the owner and trainer a specific target: qualify.

Qualify and you can play around and have some fun. Many of you have had healthy horses as owners or trainers that trained for six months and try hard, but you know will never race below 2:00; this is demoralizing. The challenge of getting horses like this to the races and striving to get at least a part of those purses for NW of 10K purchased for 10K, would keep interest alive.

We do not want to encourage mediocrity. These horses will not be around long term. As soon as a horse reaches a designated speed or monetary level they cycle out. Young horses that trot in the 2:04 range on a good day will rarely have a future on the racetrack, but that is not the point. Our goal should be something for serious buyers who wind up with a horse on the fringe of ability, give these folks who have spent a lot of money a place to race for a limited amount of time.

The big players will not be affected; their horses will whiz past the money limit. Horses that cannot qualify will still be winnowed. Horses with true promise will not want to sacrifice true maiden race purses (and raising maiden purses would be another plus for buyers). Nobody gets hurt should this odd classification be put into play.

There is a tipping point where a participant in harness horse racing goes forward or goes away. To keep owners, and to add new owners, they need to experience some “success.” Success is a relative term, but the more owners succeed, the stronger our base will be (this holds true on the wagering side as well).

From a business point of view, breeders and racetracks should consider creating classes for young horses that qualify but are very marginal. The project could be cost effective from day one. The classes could be expanded based on data. Giving a positive experience to as many customers as possible would seem to be good business. This is something tracks and breeders could work on together.

We need to build shock absorbers to make the inevitable falls off harness racing’s fiscal cliffs a little less damaging and a little more fun.